A Forgotten Hero
On May 13th, 1950, Diners Club issued its very first credit card, and Giuseppe Farina won the first ever Formula 1 World Drivers Championship. Also on that day, to much less fanfare, Daniel David Langran was born in a suburb of London, England. Not much is known about Daniel’s early years, except when he was eight years old his birth parents separated. Daniel’s mother was a singer with eclectic musical taste, and she introduced young Daniel to a diverse array of artists such as Django Reinhardt, the Ink Spots, and various jazz musicians. As a teenager, Daniel was influenced by Hank Marvin and the Shadows and the burgeoning English blues scene. He learned to play guitar, and soon this thin, pasty-faced boy with a mop of blond hair became an accomplished musician in his own right.
When he was 17, Danny Kirwan, as he was then known after his mother remarried, left school and worked briefly as an insurance clerk while dabbling in the local music scene. In 1968, while fronting a band called Boilerhouse, he was noticed by representatives of a nascent British blues band called Fleetwood Mac.
That chance meeting resulted in Boilerhouse being signed as a supporting act for Fleetwood Mac. Kirwan’s bandmates, however, were not suited for lives as professional musicians, and before long Kirwan was a front man without a band. Fortunately for him, the members of Fleetwood Mac were so impressed with his musical skills that they invited Kirwan to join them. Suddenly, at the tender age of eighteen, Danny Kirwan went from playing in London-area bars to being an integral member of an internationally known blues-rock band, sharing the stage with the likes of The Who, Pink Floyd, Chuck Berry and the Grateful Dead.
Kirwan’s fellow guitarist in this early version of Fleetwood Mac was Peter Green, who had himself achieved “guitar god” status for his stint as Eric Clapton’s replacement in John Mayall’s seminal band, the Bluesbreakers. Kirwan proved to be the perfect foil for Green, and his soothing, almost angelic vocal style added a new dimension to the band. Kirwan inspired Green as they collaborated on memorable guitar passages, intricately weaving melodic lines and sweet harmony parts on top of songs rooted in the blues. Few bands of the era could match the tasteful, yet powerful compositions proffered by the dynamic duo of Green and Kirwan on albums such as Then Play On.
From the beginning of his tenure with Fleetwood Mac, however, there were signs that not all was well with Kirwan. Shortly after he joined the band, Peter Green said “[Danny] has done some incredible things on the new LP and we’re proud to have him with us, [but] he’s neurotic and worries about everything. Whenever he has to be anywhere, he gets there about an hour early. He even worries about simple things like catching a bus. He bites his nails until they bleed. He’s either right up or right down, either raving or worrying.” About that same time Kirwan, in an interview with Melody Maker magazine, described himself as a person who just couldn’t relax and was often “nervous” and “highly strung.” The pressure of touring, and his inability to forge close relationships with his fellow band members, no doubt contributed to his increasing use of alcohol and drugs.
Other band members, too, had been rumored to indulge in psychedelics. In the middle of a European tour in 1970, members of a hippie community in Munich invited the band back to their residence. Details are sketchy and it is unclear who in the band actually took the hippies up on their offer. But what is known is that Peter Green visited the commune and “dropped acid” there. Accounts of Kirwan’s whereabouts are contradictory; some sources put Kirwan at the commune as well, some don’t. Whether or not LSD played a role, the incident was a pivotal moment in the history of early Fleetwood Mac; relationships subsequently soured, Kirwan became increasingly more withdrawn, and not long afterwards, Peter Green left the band.
Yet despite his personal foibles and the band’s personnel changes, Kirwan successfully held his demons at bay and allowed his creative spirit to soar. Without Green to share the spotlight, Kirwan reluctantly stepped into the role of “front man” once again, his songwriting genius, guitar skills, and vocal prowess on display for all the world to see and hear. During his time in the band in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Kirwan arguably created some of the most memorable songs in all of early rock music. With his heartbreakingly beautiful compositions such as “Dust,” “Woman of 1000 Years,” and “Sunny Side of Heaven,” his rambunctious rockers like “Bare Trees” and “Child of Mine,” and his graceful, ethereal tunes such as “Sands of Time,” Kirwan’s flame burned brightly, for a time.
The flame was short-lived, unfortunately. The pressure of life on the road, combined with his drug and alcohol use, took a toll on Kirwan and his bandmates. It all came to a head in an incident where he trashed a dressing room, smashed his guitar, and refused to go on stage. At just 22 years old, he was fired from the band. Kirwan continued in the music business for a few more years, but other than putting out several largely ignored solo albums, he never achieved anything approaching the success he had with Fleetwood Mac. Reminiscing about the recording of Kirwan’s 1979 solo album, a colleague said: “As an experience it was difficult… He had become totally reclusive. Danny appears to have played rhythm guitar on that album, but he couldn’t handle the lead guitar work. It was evident he’d fallen totally apart.” That effort, sadly, marked the end of Danny Kirwan’s musical career.
The 1980s and 1990s found Kirwan in a downward spiral, homeless, sleeping on park benches or residing in shelters, a victim of deteriorating mental health. Occasionally, a friend or acquaintance would track him down – a sort of welfare check – or a curious music journalist would seek him out for a “whatever happened to…” interview. Those who knew him during this time described him as having a tenuous grip on reality. He lived out his remaining years in obscurity, impoverished and largely forgotten. Danny Kirwan passed away in London at the age of 68, leaving behind a son, a product of a brief marriage in his younger days.
Kirwan is remembered both as a supremely talented musician, and as a troubled, sensitive soul. It was this duality that haunted Kirwan throughout his life. Never quite able to build healthy, enduring relationships with his peers, he expressed himself through his music in raw, unadulterated fashion. He remains a tragic figure, an underappreciated musical savant who never obtained the accolades he deserved during his lifetime.[i] In a recent interview, Mick Fleetwood said: “Danny was a quantum leap ahead of us creatively … He is the lost component. In many ways, Danny is a forgotten hero.”
While the mention of Fleetwood Mac today brings to mind a string of hits from the more recent, pop-oriented incarnation of the band, we must not forget their humble beginnings, and the role Kirwan played in expanding their horizons and setting the stage for future fame and fortune. Although he has long passed into dust, Danny Kirwan’s spirit is alive and his music, then, plays on.
[i] Fleetwood Mac were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. However, Kirwan did not attend the ceremony.
© 2022 L. Wechsler. All rights reserved.
Thank you for this wonderful and well-researched piece. I’m a big Danny Kirwan fan, and the tunes of his that you mentioned are among the very best pieces Fleetwood Mac ever produced. The albums Then Play On, Kiln House, Future Games, and Bare Trees long enjoyed pride of place in my record collection. It wasn’t the same without Kirwan, even though I continued to appreciate later iterations of Fleetwood Mac.